Political Correctness

i was listening to some talk radio this morning, and something i was informed of kinda pissed me off. what is with the trend of changing a term given something to make it 'less offensive' or more 'socially acceptable'?

During World War 2 many of our soldiers came home 'shell shocked'. the trauma of war changed them so much they had difficulty trying to recover from it. it was something only soldiers got, something only they suffered (the shell of shell shock being a reference to the shells of guns or bombs). now its termed 'post tramatic stress disorder'. now im not saying that this is a bogus excuse to fall back on when youve had a bad experience, because any one can suffer from PTSD. and therein lies the problem. any one can suffer from it, which means that any one can say they have it, and the doctors cant say 'no you dont', teachers cant say 'youre just fine' society cant say 'shape up or get out' because that would be discrimination.

If any one can suffer from it, and any one can say they have it, we have to deal with the liars that are going to use the system to their advantage. these are the same type of people who are on welfare buying plasma TVs, high rolling cars and voting for obama. (because hes going to pay my morgatge and put gas in my car).

i was hit by a car when i was seven. it was a pretty traumatic experience, at the time. but then i went to school, and showed the police pictures for show and tell. I GOT OVER IT. there are people who fall back on the crutch that they cant be fully functioning members of society because they had a bad experience. this devaules the claim of the people who truly do suffer from it who want to overcome it more than printing more money devalues the dollar.

but this isnt what i wanted to talk about.
the War On Terror has been renamed 'Overseas Contingency Plan'
and terrorism has been renamed 'Man Made Disasters'

Things are named they way they are for a REASON, and that reason (offensive or not) gives the word its connotation, its meaning. how bad does a 'man made disaster' sound? like a flood, or a brige collapsing, right? remember 9/11? Pearl Harbor? Oklahoma City Bombing? ANY SCHOOL SHOOTING? those are nothing, just man made disasters. it could happen any where, to any one. its nothing.

when you change the name of a thing, you change the thing itself. when you devalue the meaning of words, change them to be less offensive, to mean somthing than what theyre supposed to be, things change all around. like a stone in the water, only the ripples never stop.

So watch what you say. keep using old phrases. dont give in to this new trend of changing the meaning to suit your uses. the old words did fine for hundreds of years. why do we need to change now?

BECOME LITERATE
Strive to be well spoken, and NEVER let anyone Change your Words.